GEDmatch Used to Find Criminal

The website GEDmatch was used to catch a murderer and rapist in California. He was known as the Golden State Killer and the East Area Rapist. His DNA has been frozen and was recently tested using modern technology that the DNA testing companies use.

The GEDmatch website was created so that people who test at different companies can upload their raw DNA results and get more matches.

Anyone can upload data to GEDmatch. The police were able to upload DNA found at the crime scene to the website and compare it to matches found at the site without needing a court order. They were able to see how much the crime scene DNA was shared with other individuals. The more DNA that is shared the more closely related they are.

There were many distant cousins that matched. This was a starting point to then look into the genealogy of these matches. They looked for common ancestors of the matches and then figured out who all the descendants are for the common ancestors. Then they looked for individuals who would be the correct age and height and where the person has been living. Then they looked at the potential suspects to see if they had been under arrest when the crimes took place. That would eliminate those people.

When the suspect list became small enough they started to get DNA samples for those people. You could ask for a consent sample or get a warrant or follow them around to get a sample when they discard their DNA in a public place. They can lawfully take the DNA from a public place. This is what was done with Joseph James DeAngelo.

They uploaded the DNA to GEDmatch and it was an exact match to the DNA that was uploaded from the crime scene as well as had all the same matches as the crime scene DNA.

All of this analysis took four months from the time the DNA sample was uploaded to GEDmatch. The common ancestors that were found would be DeAngelo’s great-great-great-grandparents from the early 1800s. From that couple, 25 family trees were created containing thousands of individuals down to the present day.

A team of five investigators built the family tress using census records, newspaper obituaries, gravesite locators, and police and commercial database to find all the descendants.

Two people stood out. They were able to get a relative of one persons to test and they were not a match. Another person, DeAngelo, stood out because he was a former disgraced cop. They thought the killer was in law enforcement based on how the crimes were committed.

The DNA was an absolute match from DNA that was left at the crime scene.

When you have your DNA tested you are also sharing your family members DNA. Your DNA may be used for other purposes other than genealogy. The concern has always been there.

The Golden State Killer’s Y-DNA was uploaded to Ysearch. This is public database for people to upload Y-DNA and search for matches. The site is run by Family Tree DNA. About a year ago there was a 12-marker match. So, a subpoena was sent to Family Tree DNA to find out the name of the person that matched and who paid for the test. They wanted to know who paid for the test because some people do not use their real names when submitting DNA to the database.

A woman paid for the test to have her elderly father tested. Another warrant was obtained to get DNA from the father to do a 67-marker test. He gave his DNA willingly and he was not a match to the killer with 67 markers.

Buck Skin Girl

Two weeks before the Golden State Killer was found using GEDmatch, GEDmatch was used to identify the remains of a murder victim. She was known as buckskin girl because she was wearing a buckskin jacket when she was killed in 1981.

They still don’t know who killed the girl.

When her DNA was uploaded to GEDmatch, a first cousin once removed was determined. That person’s family tree showed a Marcia King who was listed as missing and presumed deceased. This turned out to be the murder victim.

The DNA Doe Project worked on this case. This is a non-profit initiative to help identify Jane and John Does and return them to their families. Margaret Press and Colleen Fitzpatrick were the ones to analyze the DNA at GEDmatch to find Marcia King.

Company to Help Solve Crimes from an Unknown DNA Sample

CeCe Moore is a well-known genetic genealogist. She is a keynote speaker at many conferences, she plans the yearly International Genetic Genealogy Conference and she works on the PBS series Finding Your Roots to analyze the DNA of the guests who appear on the show.

Her latest involvement is with a new genetic genealogy unit that is part of a company called Parabon. They have a new tool for solving crimes with evidence from an unknown DNA sample. It’s called Snapshot Genetic Genealogy Service.

The new service will compare crime scene DNA samples against public genetic genealogy databases to narrow down a suspect to a family or individual. The approach is the same methodology that was used to identify the Golden State Killer.

The company has already used the service with nearly 100 agencies. Of the cases that were examined 20 – 30% seem solvable. The service not only finds criminals but also finds the identity of missing people.

Less than two weeks after the initial announcement, CeCe Moore was able to find proof for someone who committed a murder 31 years ago. She used GEDmatch to upload the suspect’s DNA that was found at the crime scene and build a family tree from the suspect’s matches to his great-grandparents.

The two matches were researched to find their common ancestral couple. She then built that tree forward until two the best matches converged. They intersected at a marriage that produced only one son, the suspect. He was arrested, and his DNA was tested. It matched the DNA found at the crime scene.

GEDMatch Update Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

As a result of GEDmatch being in the news to catch criminals as well as remains and the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) being put into place, the site owners have updated their Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.

They will allow DNA to be uploaded that has been obtained and authorized by law enforcement to identify a perpetrator of a violent crime against another individual or identify remains of a deceased individual. It also states that your DNA may be used by third parties such as law enforcement agencies to identify the perpetrator of a crime, or to identify remains.

You have the option to agree to the new terms, delete your account and all data you have uploaded to GEDmatch or you can opt to decide later.

World Families Newtork, Ysearch, and Mitosearch Going Away

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will take effect on May 25th in Europe. It gives control to those living in the European Union over their personal data which includes the export of their data outside the EU.

Companies must comply with this regulation. If they don’t they will be fined. Some companies are going out of business rather than spending the money needed to comply with the regulation.

World Families Network, Ysearch, and Mitosearch will be going away by May 25th, the day the regulation begins.

World Families Network was a website that was created to help others with Surname Projects at Family Tree DNA. Project administrators could display test results, family pedigrees, and share information at the website. Others could go the website to learn about DNA testing and order a DNA kit for a surname project.

Ysearch and Mitosearch were established in 2003 by Family Tree DNA for people to compare results for Y DNA or mtDNA from any testing company. Since other testing companies have stopped testing Y and mitochondrial DNA, these sites are not as useful. Only Family Tree DNA does Y and mitochondrial DNA testing.

Saving Memories Forever Going Away

Also going away will be an app called Saving Memories Forever. This app won the RootsTech 2014 Developer Challenge. It was an iOS and Android app that let you record stories that get passed down in families and new stories. The stories are stored at the SavingMemoriesForever.com website so you could share them with friends and family on the website.

Saving Memories Forever is looking for someone to take over the website and/or the app. If you are a user of the app and website, you need to download your recordings by the end of the month.

23andMe Sues Ancestry

23andMe recently filed a lawsuit against Acestry.com. The suit accuses Ancestry.com of infringing on a 23andMe’s patent which is for DNA kits that identify a person’s relatives who share parts of their DNA. It also accuses Ancestry.com of running ads that falsely state that its test tests five times more regions that its rivals. In the fine print Ancestry states that it tested two times more regions than 23andMe. Some ads do not even include this statement about 23andMe.

23andMe has asked Ancestry to stop with this marketing practice. Ancestry did not remedy the issues to 23andMe’s satisfaction.

The 23andMe patent was issued in 2013. The title of the patent is “Finding Relatives in a Database.” It states the if two people have a DNA match then the first user is notified about the relative relationship with the second user. 23andMe analyzes “identical by descent” regions of the genome to determine the degree to which two people found in their database are related.

AncestryDNA produced a white paper that describes how they match people who share DNA. 23andMe claims that this white paper describes a method that is similar to theirs.

23andMe claims that its process of comparing DNA using “identical by decent” regions uses methods of identifying, measuring, and comparing these regions.

Also included in the lawsuit is the word “ancestry” which the company Ancestry has trademarked as a logotype. 23andMe denies that it infringes on the trademark for the word “ancestry” but it believes that the company Ancestry should not have a claim to the word. 23andMe has asked that the trademark be invalidated because the word has become a generic term used by other companies in the field.

23andMe is seeking damages that are three times the amount assessed by the court for “willful and deliberate” infringement of its patent. 23andMe is also asking the court for a permanent injunction prohibiting Ancestry from making false statements and that Ancestry corrects misrepresentations online and is seeking profits that Ancestry made as a result of “deceptive, misleading and unfair business practices and advertisements.”

Ancestry.com Technical Problems

Ancestry is in the process of updating its infrastructure to improve site performance and enable more records and hints. Customers are experiencing issues such as links taking you to the wrong place, number of results are incorrect, private tress are listed as public, and all sorts of strange things.

Ancestry has reassured its customers that their family trees will be preserved even if you are experiencing some difficulties at the site.

These issues are related to the complexity of the infrastructure upgrades and they will end when the upgrades are completed. This should occur by May 31st.

Once the system enhancements are fully operational, Ancestry’s platform will be providing an improved experience for everyone. There will be technical improvements as a result of the upgrades.

In June Ancestry will be launching 22 new collections with over 60 million new records. The number of records available to the Shaky Leaf hinting will grow to 700 million. They will be implementing a Family Group Sheet view and they will broaden the ability to perform searches from person profiles in public member trees.

Ancestry Adds the 1939 Register for England and Wales

Ancestry has added the 1939 Register for England and Wales. The 1939 Register is similar to a census. It was created at the beginning of World War II to record information about every household.

The purpose of the register was to collect personal details about individuals in order to issue identity cards and ration books. Later on, it was used as the basis for the National Health Service’s records.

It is believed that because people knew the data would be used in the event that ration cards would be issued, they tended to fill it in very accurately.

The 1931 census in Britain was destroyed by fire in 1942. This was during wartime, but the fire was not caused by enemy action. The Scottish census was stored in a different building and it still exists but won’t be released until 2031 or later.

Since the war was going on, there wasn’t a 1941 census. The 1939 Register can be used as a census substitute. Anyone who is still living has been redacted to protect their privacy.

The 1939 Register for England and Wales was first released on Findmypast in 2015.

Now that it is fully on Ancestry, Findmypast no longer has exclusive access to it. It can also be found at MyHeritage but MyHeritage only has an index for it. There are no images of the 1939 Register at MyHeritage.

Ancestry Adds Records from the Swedish-American Lutheran Churches

Ancestry has added some records from the Swedish-American Lutheran churches. They are releasing these records as they become digitized and indexed. These records were from the Augustana College Swenson Swedish Immigration Research Center.

Each church kept their own records and they decided what to record. There may be meeting minutes, membership information, or birth, marriage, and death records. Some will list the individuals’ place of origin in Sweden.

MyHeritage’s Gilad Japhet Webinar Announcements

MyHeritage owns Millennia Corporation which makes Legacy software and Legacy Family Tree Webinars. The founder of MyHeritage, Gilad Japhet, made a webinar recently where he talked about the history of MyHeritage, the reason for buying Millennia Corporation, and new features coming to MyHeritage this year.

Plans are to continue with webinars and provide more resources to enhance the service. The webinars are being promoted to MyHeritage users. Coming soon will be closed captions or subtitles for an international audience and a mobile app. If many international users start watching the webinars, they may consider creating webinars in other languages with English subtitles.

Subtitles will be added to all the new webinars going forward and to all the most popular webinars that have already been recorded.

Geoff Rasmussen will continue to select speakers and manage the operation. This means that Geoff can have webinars from MyHeritage competitors.

The Legacy program will continue to be developed. The next version will include the optional feature to tree sync to MyHeritage. It will be off by default. Those who want to use it will need to turn it on. There will be automatic source citation for records found on MyHeritage.

Gilad did not mention all the new features that will be coming to MyHeritage. He did not want his competitors to know about some of the new features and he wanted to keep some of the features as surprises to everyone.

Pedigree view has been released. It’s currently in read-only mode with full editing becoming available in the next few weeks. This has been a feature that was requested by users. A pedigree view shows a root person along with their ancestors. It does not show siblings, spouses, or anyone else who is not a direct ancestor.

You can toggle between pedigree view and the older family view at any time.

DNA Quest was to give away 15,000 DNA kits to help adopted people all over the world reunite with their biological families. They had 17,000 applications and almost all of them will be receiving free DNA kits. DNA Quest was announced at RootsTech.

MyHeritage has improved DNA matching. They are now working on improving ethnicity estimates with better separation between similar regions, providing more regions, and better accuracy based on more data. When the new ethnicity results become available you will have the choice between the old ethnicity results and the new one.

Right now, you can see the shared surnames with your DNA matches. Soon you be able to see the shared places you have with your DNA matches. These shared places will be places of birth and death that you share with your DNA matches.

MyHeritage is working on a new feature called Ancestral Birthplaces Chart. This is a new fan chart that shows the ancestral birth places of your ancestors. You will be able to access this information for your DNA matches so you can easily get a good idea about how you are related. This will be released very soon.

There will be a new tabular view for search results that will let you view the results in a more condensed format. You will be able to sort the results by each of the column headings. Each collection will have different column headings.

This will allow for more convenient browsing and sorting of historical records when they originate from the same collection or category. It will be implemented only for desktop computers.

MyHeritage Health Family Tree

MyHeritage has introduced the Health Family Tree. It’s available to all users who have taken a MyHeritage DNA test or uploaded DNA data to MyHeritage. You must have at least 7 people in the family tree.

The Health Family Tree is a private and secure area where you can document the health conditions of your family members. This will allow you to communicate with healthcare professionals more efficiently.

The Health Family Tree is automatically created from a subset of your genealogical tree. Currently it’s in beta.

FamilySearch Communities

FamilySearch has added a community feature to its site. This a place where you can ask general questions or search for questions and answers.

There is also a section for groups. The groups have already been created, you can’t create a new group. But you can join existing groups that interest you. Once you join a group, you will find the discussion in the group under the My Feed tab. In the group you can ask questions related to the group topic or upload a document for translation.

New Records at Findmypast

Findmypast has a new search capability for the 1939 Register. You can search the database by street or location and get a map. You enter the street name and it will list all the entries for people living on that street.

Findmypast continues to add their Catholic Heritage Archive by adding more Roman Catholic records from England and Wales. The have added Roman Catholics from the County of York in 1604.

And they have added many new additions to the Billion Graves Cemetery Indexes. 2.6 million more United States obituary notices have been added.

Findmypast has a new collection for Surrey baptism and a new collection about finding where a baptism, marriage, or burial took place in Staffordshire.

More recent death records have been added for the years 2007 – 2016. These records cover England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man, and Jersey.

A collection of historical publications from Red Rose County in Lancashire has been added as well as some historical publications from Shropshire. You may find parish registers, court rolls, local history and more in this collection.

They have added 12 publications on the Scotch-Irish in North American. These publications contain information about the history of the Ulster Scots and their descendants in the United States and Canada.

They’ve also added 75 directories from British India for the years 1792 – 1948.

They have added to their collections of Yorkshire burials, Irish newspapers, and PERSI – the PERiodical Source Index. Twenty new titles have been added to the British Newspapers collection as well as many more articles.

For Queensland in Australia, they’ve added the register of land sold 1842 – 1859 and a list of Justices of the Peace 1857 – 1957. They have also added trustee files for Queensland. These contain a variety of records that were created from the provisions of wills.

Library of Congress and Bibliothèque Nationale de France Announce Collaboration on International Digital Content

The Library of Congress and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France have announced a collaboration on international digital content. This initiative will also be supported by the National Archives.

The collaboration will provide digital content for a new online space for collections relating to shared French-American history. Books, maps, prints, and other documents will be digitized from partner libraries.

A new website will be created to show the cultural and historical connections between France and Northern America in the United States during the 16th through the 19th centuries.

New Book Professional Genealogy: Preparation, Practice & Standards

You may have heard of the book Professional Genealogy: A Manual for Researchers, Writers, Editors, Lecturers, and Librarians, edited by Elizabeth Shown Mills. It is used by many professional genealogists to get their business going and it’s the book that is used in the ProGen study groups. These study groups have been going on for the past ten years.

Now there is a new book that is being used for the study groups. It’s called Professional Genealogy: Preparation, Practice & Standards and it’s edited by Elizabeth Shown Mills. This new book is very different from the previous book. Topics under the chapters are similar but all the information in them has been created by current well-known individuals in their fields.

The content in the book is not just for professional genealogists or those wanting to become a professional genealogist. The content is worthwhile for any genealogists who wants to do research the best way they can.

New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) presented its lifetime achievement award to author and historian David McCullough. He was given this award “for his unparalleled contributions to the historical narrative of our nation.”David McCullough has written the following books related to the history of the United States.

• The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914

• John Adams

• Truman

• 1776

• The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge

• Mornings on Horseback: The Story of an Extraordinary Family, a Vanished Way of Life and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore Roosevelt

• Johnston Flood

• Brave Companions

• The Course of Human Events: The 2003 Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities

• In the Dark Streets Shineth: A 1941 Christmas Eve Story

• The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris

• The Wright Brothers

• The American Spirit: Who We Are and What We Stand For

NEHGS presented David McCullough with his genealogy. McCullough’ has kinship with a grand family of literary greats—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Emily Dickinson, Henry Brooks Adams, Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, and Tennessee Williams. Also, both wives of Theodore Roosevelt who he had written about as well as Orville and Wilbur Wright featured in the book The Wright Brothers are related.

Steve Morse Adds More Tools to his One-Step Site

Steve Morse is well-known for his one-step website found at stevemorse.org. The one-step tools simplify searching for information at other genealogy websites. He has added the ability to search the New Jersey voter records easily. In 2016 he added a tool search the New York State Voter records. Both of the tools can be found under the Vital records section of his website.

Three Photo Archives for New Jersey, Idaho, and Oregon

Three photo archives have recently had articles written about them and I thought they were worth mentioning. The first one is for images of Ocean City, New Jersey. It contains current and historical images of Ocean City. The man who created the website has been collecting images of Ocean City for years. You can find these images at OCNKimages.com. Plans are to update the website and add more images. If you have any images of Ocean City you can contribute them to the website.

The second photo archive is for photos of Idaho. It is a collection 30,000 images from the Idaho Transportation Department. The images preserve the photographic history of transportation projects in Idaho. There are images of roads, ports, railroads, bridges, and airports.

The third photo archive documents Portland, Oregon’s African American community over the years. The images came from the archives of the Oregon Historical Society Research Library, Oregon State University, and City of Portland Archives. Plans are to continue to add to this collection.

Team at NYU to Build Database of African American Civil War Soldiers

A student at New York University has launched a project to put online records of the United States Colored Troops. These were African American soldiers who had been slaves at the start of the Civil War and served in the Union Army.

Documents about these individuals are housed, in paper format, at the National Archives Building in Washington, D.C. The effort to bring these documents online includes historians, social scientists, and the African American Civil War Museum in Washington.

The documents are being transcribed and when completed, they will be placed at the website of the African American Civil War Museum.

New York Genealogical and Biographical Society Guide to the New York State Archives

The New York Genealogical and Biographical Society has begun work on a guide to the New York State Archives. The publication is being produced in cooperation with the New York State Archives and will be authored by Jane E. Wilcox.

Jane E. Wilcox is a professional genealogist and founder of Forget-Me-Not Ancestry. She also hosted a radio show for over six years called the Forget-Me-Not Hour: Your Ancestors Want Their Stories To Be Told. She ended that about a year ago and past episodes can be found at the Blog Talk Radio website.

The publication will outline the numerous materials found at the Archives and how to trace New York families at the Archives.

Alabama Project to Transcribe World War I Service Records

The Alabama Department of Archives and History has launched a crowdsourced transcription project to transcribe World War I service records. The records have been digitized and now they need to be transcribed.

They hope to have the collection transcribed by November 2018 in time for the celebration of one-hundredth anniversary of Armistice Day.

Maps from Illinois

More than 850 maps from the Southern Illinois University Carbondale’s Morris Library are available online. They cover the city of Carbondale and the rest of Jackson County as well as other Southern Illinois counties. The maps show county roads, land ownership, proposed developments, aerial photographs, and coal, oil and gas mining maps.

Additions to DigitalNC

DigitalNC is the online library for institutions across North Carolina. They have added a few things recently.

Lots of new yearbooks have been added for Alamance County schools, over 40 years of Salisbury High School’s yearbook. Salisbury High School is located in Rowan county. A new batch of yearbooks from Greensboro has been added. And new yearbooks from Elkin High School have been added. Elkin is located in Surry and Wilkes Counties.

The student-run newspaper, The Stentorian, from the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, is available at DigitialNC. This school is a residential high school located in Durham, North Carolina

A new batch of materials from Rocky Mount, North Carolina have been added. This collection contains several day books and ledgers, as well as a school yearbooks and school assignments dating back to 1913.

A new batch of course catalogs from Johnson C. Smith University have been added.

Some personal financial papers from Edgecombe County residents date back as far as 1777 can be found in a collection of manuscripts from the Edgecombe County Memorial Library.

Four new World War II era scrapbooks have been digitized from Randolph County. And new issues for the Roxboro Courier can be found online at DigitalNC.

Fundraising to Preserve North Carolina Military History

The Military Collection at the State Archives of North Carolina has launched the “Preserve N.C. Military History” fundraising effort. They hope to raise $9,500 to hire a contract archivist for six months to help the Military Collection Archivist process, organize, describe, and make available military records and papers that document North Carolina’s military history.

Digitized materials from this project will be made available to the public online in the North Carolina Digital Collections. Photographs will be put online through the State Archives’ Flickr page.

Digital Library of Georgia Additions

Items from the Interdenominational Theological Center include many different journals, an alumni news publication, and yearbooks. Photographs have been added from Morehouse College and Spelman College. Catalogs have been added from Morris Brown College.

The Digital Library of Georgia has also added city council minutes from Perry, Georgia, covering the 19th and 20th centuries.

Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection Adds The Altruian

The Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection has added The Altruian. Th Alturian was a weekly newspaper for Southwestern Colorado.The newspaper began in 1895 with a nationwide distribution to recruit aspiring settlers to the region.

The Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection now contains digitized copies of nearly every issue of The Altrurian from 1895-1901.

Chattanooga Newspapers to be Digitized

Two men hope to raise enough money to digitize more newspapers from Chattanooga, Tennessee. $1,500 will be enough to allow the first batch to go online. So far, they have raised $1,800. The money raised in excess of $1,500 will go to future digital newspaper content.

You can donate at ChattanoogaNewspapers.org. Levels include $50 at the “Friends” level. “Sponsors” can give $250 and “Partners” start at the $500 level.

Billings Gazette has been Digitized

The Billings Gazette from Montana and its related publications have been digitized through a partnership with Newspapers.com. The Gazette’s archives may be accessed with a subscription to Newspapers.com or a subscription at billingsgazette.com/archives.

The cost is $29.95 for six months to access just the Billings Gazette or $74.90 for six months to access everything at Newspapers.com

LAC Monthly Report on the Canadian Expeditionary Force Personnel Service Files

The Library and Archives Canada continues digitizing the Canadian Expeditionary Force Personnel Service Files. They are now up to the name Waterous. – W A T E R O U S.

These service files are for soldiers of the First World War. They are digitizing the files basically in alphabetical order.

They are now 93% complete. They want to be completed by November 2018 which is the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. At the current rate of digitization, they will have this collection completed by the beginning of October 2018. This is a few weeks later than last month’s prediction for the completion date.

Quebec to Provide Access to Adoption Information

Starting on June 16th, Quebec social service agencies will be able to provide information found in adoption files. The new law that goes into effect on June 16th will not provide access to everything in the adoption file. It will allow access to key information found in the file.

Adopted people will be able to find out their original first and last names. If the biological mother or father has been dead for at least a year, the adopted person will be able to obtain their parent’s name. This will not happen for a year to give time for birth parents to object to their names being given to their birth child.

The birth parents and the adopted child may learn of each other’s identity if both parties agree to it.

If an adopted person has died, their children and grandchildren will not have access to the information in the adoption file.

University of British Columbia Library Funds Digitization of Historical Resources

The University of British Columbia Library will fund the digitization of historical resources for 18 organizations. Items to be digitized include newspapers and other publications, photographs, videos, posters, and the Museum of Vancouver will digitize bird taxidermy and product packaging.

Access to the digitized items will be free.

I’ll have a link in the show notes where you can see a detailed list about what will be digitized.

The New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) and the Ontario Genealogical Society (OGS) have announced a marketing collaboration between the two organizations. The collaboration will offer memberships, products, and services at discount prices to members of both organizations. Special pricing will also be offered for research projects, online courses, webinars, and professional consultations.

Each society will offer members to the other society a $10 discount on new memberships.

Migration from Canada to United States was easy and common place in the 1800s. Similarly, migration from New England to Canada was prevalent during that time. With so many descendants living in both countries, there is a crossover of genealogical interests between Canada and the United States making the collaboration a benefit for many.

Ontario Genealogical Society Introduces the Short Video Series

The Ontario Genealogical Society (OGS) now has a Short Video Series. These videos are meant to help you begin researching your Ontario ancestors. You don’t need to be an OGS member to access the videos.

Each video is presented by various genealogy experts and focuses on one topic. The first series has been released and OGS is looking for more genealogical experts who would like to present a Short Video.

TheGenealogist Adds Warwickshire Parish Records

TheGenealogist, a subscription site in the UK, has added parish records for Warwickshire. This is the second batch of parish records from Warwickshire to be added. The records come from an ongoing project with the Warwickshire County Record Office.

100 Years of Scottish Photograph to be Displayed and Digitized

A collaboration between the National Library of Scotland and the National Galleries of Scotland have enabled more than 14,000 images related to the history of Scotland to be acquired.

The McKinnon Collection covers a range of subjects — including family portraits, working life, street scenes, sporting events, shops, tenements, mountains, monuments and more. It was one of the last great collections of Scottish photography still in private hands.

The collection will be displayed at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery next year, with touring exhibitions around the country to follow. The entire collection will also be digitized over the next three years and made available online.

National Library of Scotland Adds Maps

The National Library of Scotland has added maps to its website for towns, counties, regions, coastal charts, maps for tourists, road maps, and railway maps. The maps date from the 1840s to the 1940s. About 200 of these maps have recently been added to the website.

RootsIreland Adds Limerick Records

The RootsIreland website has added many records from the county of Limerick. There are Roman Catholic church records, civil records, and some miscellaneous records.

According to Claire Santry of Irish Genealogy News, some of these new collections can be found for free at other websites. However, the collections at RootsIreland have been transcribed independently of other databases and by local people who recognize names and placenames making the indexes more accurate.

Launch of the Great Irish Famine Online

The Great Irish Famine Online has been launched. There are interactive maps, you can analyze statistics about the changes in the social, political and economic landscape of Ireland pre- and post-Famine. These statistics come from the 1841 and 1851 census.

The Great Irish Famine Online is a collaboration between staff at University College Cork’s Geography Department and the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. It can be found at the National Famine Commemoration website.

Virtual Genealogy Society

There is a new genealogy society called the Virtual Genealogy Society. This is a global organization serving family history enthusiasts of all levels. They will be offering monthly meetings online, webinars, social networking, an annual conference that has already been announced, and meet-ups for members.

National Genealogical Society Announcements

There have been some announcements from the National Genealogical Society (NGS). This coincides with their recent conference.

They have released three new research state guide books. The Massachusetts book was written by David Allen lambert. The Rhode Island book was written by Maureen Taylor and Diane Boumenot. And the third book is about Michigan. It was written by Brenda Leyndyke.

The 2018 edition of Paths to Your Past: A Guide to Finding Your Ancestors is now available. The book has completely been revised and updated. It is a comprehensive reference guide for family historians and genealogist. It is written by Pamela Boyer Sayre.

NGS has released two more Continuing Genealogical Studies courses. They are African American Roots: A Historical Perspective with Janice Lovelace and Federal Land Records with Angela Packer McGhie.

Each course costs $45 for members or $70 for nonmembers.

The 2019 NGS conference will be held in St. Charles, Missouri, May 8 – 11. And the 2020 conference will be held in Salt Lake City, Utah, from May 20 – 23.

Jamboree 2018 Mobile App and Live Streaming

The Southern California Genealogical Society’s Jamboree 2018 will be held Friday and Saturday June 1 – 2. The Genetic Genealogy day will be Thursday May 31st. Everything is held in Burbank, California.

The app for the Jamboree is now available and the details about the live streaming has been announced. In recent years the live stream for the Jamboree was free and the live streaming for Genetic Genealogy day required a payment.

This year all the live streaming will require a payment. The cost for the Genetic Genealogy day will be $99 for six presentations or $20 for each presentation. The Jamboree live stream will cost $10 for members or $55 for non-members. There will be twelve presentations streamed live during Jamboree.

You will have access to the recordings until July 31st.

Ancestry.com has underwritten the cost of live streaming in the past and they are doing this again this year. However, costs have increased, and they must charge for the live streaming.

Ontario Genealogical Society’s Conference to Broadcast Live on YouTube

Ontario Genealogical Society’s (OGS) conference will be held June 1 to 3. If you are not attending, you may want to watch the opening event and the plenary session that will be broadcast live on YouTube.

The speaker for both sessions will be Jonathan Vance, a military and Canadian historian. For the opening session the lecture will be Nation Builders You’ve Never Heard Of. He will discuss two individuals whose contribution to Canada are mostly unknown.

During the second session the title of the lecture will be Who was the Canadian Soldier of the First World War? He will talk about the Canadian Expeditionary Force records that are being digitized and placed online.

Federation of Genealogical Societies 2018 Conference Registration is Open

Registration for the Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS) 2018 conference is open. The conference will be held August 22 – 25 in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The conference is across the street from the Genealogy Center at the Allen County Public Library.

Topics for this year include DNA, technology, records, methodology, the Midwest; African American, German, Eastern European, Scandinavian, and UK research; and society management.

Family Tree Live

There will be a new UK family history show called Family Tree Live held in London April 26 – 27, 2019.The event is brought to you by Family Tree in partnership with the Federation of Family History Societies.

There will be traditional lectures, hands-on workshops, a DNA hub, advice stations, family-friendly activities and more.

They have issued a call for presentations for lectures. Each lecture will be 30 minutes with 10 minutes allowed for questions at the end of each presentation. Presentations may be submitted up until August 17, 2018.

The Genealogy Show

Another new genealogy event will be held in the UK June 8 – 9, 2019. It’s called The Genealogy Show. This event is being planned by Kirsty Gray and Sylvia Valentine. The Board includes Jill Ball (Australia), Liv Birgit Christensen (Norway), Ruth Blair (Canada), Mags Gaulden (Canada), Pat Richley-Erickson aka DearMYRTLE (US), John Boeren (Netherlands) and DM Walsh (UK).

The two-day event will take place in Birmingham. Details of the event will be released soon. You can register your interest as an exhibitor, speaker or sponsor at the website now.

Be sure to check out the calendar at Geneatopia.com for the webinars coming up. The calendar also has all the Google Hangouts that are scheduled, events going on in Second Life, and online events that you pay for.

And that’s it for this episode.

You can send email to geneatopia@gmail.com

You can find links to things mentioned in this show in the show notes at Geneatopia.com as well as a transcript. The transcript can also be found in the Geneatopia Flipboard magazine.